Russia prides itself on its digital advances — from an extensive e-commerce services sector to ambitious plans for developing artificial intelligence.

But now, some of the key data centers at the heart of its technical prowess have been knocked out by Ukrainian drone attacks in the 4 1/2-year-old full-scale invasion, suffering damage that could take a long time to repair.

Ukraine this month hit three main data centers belonging to tech giant Yandex, one for Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, and one for social media platform VKontakte, the country’s equivalent to Facebook.

While Yandex, Sberbank and VKontakte are coy about the damage, people and businesses across Russia have reported widespread interruptions to cloud services. Banking, e-commerce, geolocation and ride-hailing services, as well as Alisa, Yandex’s virtual assistant, and multimodal AI chatbots all have suffered lasting disruptions.

The fallout even spread to Russia’s judicial system, reportedly forcing arbitration courts to cancel or postpone sessions and cutting database access.

Most experts predict repairing the damage could take months, if not years. Some warn that Moscow’s aspirations to become a leader in AI development could be significantly set back.

“This effectively sets Russia far behind in the AI race,” said Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society activist group.

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Kyiv has offered to freeze the front line as Trump demanded, yet the pressure keeps landing on Zelenskyy, because Ukraine, wired into American systems, is the easier party to move.

America’s reset with Russia has begun, and nobody waited for the war to end first: a fortnight-long concessions bonanza and yet another round of shuttle diplomacy between Oslo and St Petersburg have delivered deals for Moscow and no breakthrough for Ukraine.  

The order was supposed to run the other way: Moscow stops fighting, then Washington lifts sanctions and talks business. Instead the Treasury has licensed Russian diesel, Donald Trump has waived most of the Graham sanctions act, and his envoy has thanked Vladimir Putin for the fuel. Asked this week why he would meet Putin and Xi Jinping, Trump explained that “Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine.” 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has backed plans for the resumption of talks between Ukrainian, American and Russian negotiators, saying that preparing the ground for a future meeting of national leaders is “very important for everyone.” 

Zelenskyy, who has previously called on Putin to meet him to thrash out a peace deal, emphasized that making progress toward a presidential-level summit should be part of the agenda. 

Current events show that it is not just military might that wins wars. Research finds that distance, deployment, and aims all matter.

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The Israeli military has detained about 80 US, Israeli and British volunteers helping Palestinians harvest olives near Bethlehem, including the New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander, several rabbis and Israel’s former deputy attorney general.
“I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis and volunteers,” Lander posted from a bus taking him to a police station. “We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nahalin in the West Bank. The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre hailed “constructive” talks between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, insisting there would be “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” 

Støre said Witkoff would travel to Saint Petersburg on Wednesday to meet Russian leadership and present peace proposals developed by American, Ukrainian and European officials, potentially paving the way for a meeting at the leaders’ level. 

The European Union laid out a plan on Tuesday to increase its footprint in the Arctic as global warming, conflict and competition for energy resources and critical minerals pose fresh challenges.

The EU move comes after threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to take control of Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, and after he left Iceland uneasy by posting a map with the colors of the American flag over both islands.

Other pressures are mounting as the Arctic warms about four times faster than the global average. New shipping routes are opening, China is doing more trade through the Arctic region, and a Russian military buildup is also heightening security concerns.

The EU wants to help set up a cable center to monitor, protect and repair undersea communications cables in the North Atlantic and Arctic. Russian submarines are suspected of planning to sabotage some marine infrastructure there.

At the same time, the European Commission intends to “support the delivery of a sovereign, secure, and resilient submarine cable” that would connect Greenland directly to the EU, according to a new strategy document.

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